removing them from a variety of sites. They have the additional advantage that, as well as commanding high prices — upwards of £10,000 for a genuine Georgian artefact, they are not so always so markedly individual as to prompt easy recognition at a later date.

The problem of theft is especially pernicious in London, where both English Heritage’s “police force” and the campaigns of Philip Saunders’ magazine Trace2 have received considerable recent press attention. Yet architectural theft is not, of course, a problem simply limited to the capital:

it is a virus which has spread to Georgian houses of all degrees, in all areas of the country. The theft of a £50,000 fireplace from the drawing room at Heveningham Hall in Suffolk

— the thieves apparently gaining entry through a prominent ground floor window and boldly driving off in a large truck — is still unresolved. A rather more typical story is that of English Heritage architect Arnold Root, who, shortly after moving in to his modest Bath terrace, returned home to find he had been robbed of every one of his treasured and distinctive chimneypieces.

That many of the stolen items find their way to architectural salvage companies, even if they have been accepted in good faith, is undoubted. Thus the recommendation of such outlets by the Group, or by indeed by local conservation officers, is effectively encouraging the spread of architectural theft. Of course a blanket condemnation of all salvage dealers as little more than unscrupulous fences is blatantly unfair and simplistic; yet it must be admitted that not all such companies have the impeccable pedigree of, say A J Amos’ London Architectural Salvage & Supply Company in Shoreditch. Many dealers simply fail to ask the right questions — or indeed any at all — on provenance. And, of course, once the stolen item has been resold, it is not only no longer the dealer’s responsibility, but, given that most dealers fail to keep adequate records of purchasers, it is subsequently extremely difficult to trace. Added to that, in the unlikely event of the stolen item being found, the original owner must, by law, pay the

2 Trace is a magazine started by Philip Saunders in 1988. It concentrates primarily on stolen paintings and antiques, but is including more and more architectural items — from garden statuary to staircases — and it circulates around police and dealers. Philip Saunders can be reached on 0752 228727. You may also want a viewpoint from the police; if so, contact Alan Minter or his colleagues on 0622 690690.

full market price to recover it. And of course recovery is uncommon: most features are already nestling in the drawing room of a home hundreds of miles away — or are half-way across the Atlantic — by the time serious investigation is begun.

The second key problem to face is the use of salvaged architectural features in settings of inappropriate modesty or date. Cramming over-sized or over-elaborate elements into contexts that are visually or structurally unsuitable is a crucial issue. This practice makes a mockery both of the historical integrity of a building, and of any professed intentions to recreate a “typical” interior of a precise date. It is also a problem which especially affects Georgian houses and Georgian features. Conceptions of date and style are all-too-easily submerged in the catch-all and vague concept of “Georgian” architecture and decoration; there is a widely-held belief that anything described as “Georgian” is perfectly suitable for any house built between 1710 and 1840. Thus often it is the sumptuousness or complication of the mouldings or decoration, not the chronological or decorative relevance to a particular interior or elevation, which becomes the prime criterion for purchasing salvaged items. The inevitable result of this type of pretension — itself, of course, nothing new in architecture — is often a ludicrous and incongruous juxtapositioning of diverse and elaborate features in one small, plain room. Additionally, it is also rarely pointed out that what may be pertinent for a London townhouse of c.1790 may not be appropriate for a similarly-sized provincial house of a comparable date. Thus the architectural and decorative fashions of London are, through the medium of salvaged features, beginning to replace local stylistic conventions and solutions, effectively blurring regional identities.

The question of size, too, is as important an issue as decorative pretension. In short, features which do not fit comfortably into settings for which they were not designed should not be bought. Georgian architectural artefacts are not of standard sizes or models, and cannot be used simply as interchangeable repair parts for any house of any period. This is a practice about which the Group is frequently consulted; rarely, however, do we give the desired answer.

Problems of inappropriate size or sophistication can only really be tackled through public education, a key element of which must be the action on

the part of local conservation officers. Yet surely the best way of dealing with the fundamental dangers and deficiencies of the salvage business is by regulation. This must presumably rely a good deal on the co-operation and goodwill of the salvage companies themselves. Dealers should, for example, be encouraged to maintain detailed records of provenance and dating for all items received and sold; owners, too, should be advised to measure and photograph key features. Salvage companies which are unable to provide individual histories accompanying most, if not all, of the items they have for sale should be blacklisted. Only in this way will we be able to reduce the prevalence of architectural theft, a development which will in turn help to promote the more respectable end of the salvage trade. Such strong actions may also go some way to correct the concept of the historic house as constituting no more than four walls and a roof, within which elements of different size, date, style and origin can be disposed at will.

Dr. Steven Parissien is the Education Officer for the Georgian Group.

VICTORIANS

The Victorian Society does not have a policy as such on architectural salvage. Each case tends to be assessed on its merits, but where elements have been salvaged from a demolition, reuse is considered to be acceptable provided that there is no inappropriate juxtaposition of scale and style. It is felt that there is a danger of creating a false history for a building. Where items are removed from listed buildings without consent, the Society vigorously campaigns against it (as in the Orchardleigh case, Context 23, p 15).

CONTEXT 24

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